Manikins are often used as an instructional aid in teaching students cardiopulmonary resuscitation techniques. Training manikins are also used as a practice aid to simulate conditions under which rescue personnel may be required to treat injured persons. As both teaching or demonstration aids and practice aids, manikins enable the realistic application of proper emergency cardiopulmonary resuscitation ("CPR") techniques including ventilation and external heart massage. Also manikins can be utilized for teaching and practicing other rescue techniques such as the Heimlich maneuver.
In order to provide effective CPR training through use of a manikin, many complex and interrelated functions and structures of the human body must be simulated so that the training is as realistic as possible. Also, the manikin needs to be safe and hygienic so that multiple persons can learn rescue techniques on a single manikin. The manikin should also be designed so that it can aid in the teaching of pulmonary ventilation or "mouth-to-mouth resuscitation" as well as external heart massage.
A moveable head/neck assembly is desirable for ventilation simulation, so that the manikin simulates the opening of the human airway that occurs by tilting back a person's head. Also, realistic torso anatomy is necessary to teach and simulate proper positioning and placement of the hands to properly perform external heart massage, and the Heimlich maneuver. Furthermore, a chest simulation formed of a compressible material is desirable to simulate breathing during ventilation and allow the student to gauge whether the proper amount of pressure is being exerted to a predetermined depth within the CPR manikin during external heart massage.